A little freedom struggle

They were a free bunch, revelling in the nature and being as the nature had made them to be. They enjoyed the air that coursed through them or the tickle of water when it meandered through their free flowing bodies. yes they loved the world as it was. The mere fact that they existed in a state in which they did was a war cry against the existing system. They, in their small way, were revolutionaries.
It had been 8 months since they had decided to walk on this path, path of the free where there is much derision thrown by the tyranny which has ,since they had known existence, tried to mould them , change them in the way the autocracy would have liked: the same old story of people being pushed and pulled according to the whims and fantasies of the rulers. Millimeter by millimeter they had fought the battle and millimeter by millimeter they had gained. Each new day brought a new life , promise of a new fight and they went on spurred by the determination to let nature win over the man made rules of existence. It was a little drama being played with little wins and little hiccups overcome. Make no mistake , the magnitude may be small but the importance and the significance of this little story being played was not lost on the society, nor did it go unnoticed by the rulers. They seethed in anger and decided to punish these puny beings who were bringing a change in this world slowly. And the rulers decided to wait for the right opportunity to strike. At one hand there was this threat and on the other was the fact that they were fast becoming role models with more and more of the generation deciding to go their way , hoping to follow the path set. They decided to face death rather than let down all the followers and turn back on their mantra. The fight went on.
Its an age old method and the best as well, immortalised in sholay as 'holi kab hai?, kab hai holi?!' And so it was they were attacked on this diwali. A long and bloody war ensued, fight to the end . it was brutal and enemy had blades of death and sheaths that could cut through branches in one go , shreds of bodies flew all around and 1 hour of bloody war later , i had the first haircut in 8 months. Parents ruled yet again.

The Number Game

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9............................and counting.

He always used to do this when stuck in traffic. There was no particular reason for it, he did it just to see how far he could get, counting at a leisurely pace. That was the trick to his never getting bored of counting. It wasn’t done in a hurry nor at a deliberate slow pace, he had mastered the art to let the numbers count themselves, stand up and shout 'present'. . A game of self control. Numbers would struggle to rush, to be out before the bus started moving again and he would watch the struggle fascinated. At those moments, when whole of the bus got tense or sleepy or tense and sleepy, he would be engrossed in the 'count to freedom' game as he liked to call it. yes, it was a count to freedom , he would see the journey of each number, each entity pop out of his brain , out of his body along with each breath exhaled and he would feel the anxiety each number felt as it tried to come out of his brain . He would see the anxiety turn into joy but slowly. And all of it spread, it spread into his heart, his eyes, his hands, his lips. He would be anxious for each number and he would see it turn into confidence and then to joy as it came out with his breath. He didn’t know, but his eyes turned into fear, groping in the dark, to confidence, sure of its footing and to an adrenaline rush when the numbers came out with a silent celebration. A celebration silent but poignant , hidden but lurking in his eyes, proclaiming the freedom through the half smile playing on his lips which just moments ago were quivering in anticipation of the number getting through. This was a fascinating game, steeped into irony. It started when everything stopped and it was over when the life went back to normal. some kind of serenity crept in when the bus stopped and it would leave its trail long. Long enough for the journey to end and he could still see the serene trail full of floating numbers rising and falling almost lazily along with an invisible wave. An invisible wave of air and silent , happy, free floating numbers.

he was gaining a little part of that freedom everyday. He could feel it. He increasingly felt getting free as each number rose along with the hot air each day, each moment. It was exhilarating when they rose above the world, and swept past the city, wandering to unknown places... places unheard of. Infinitesimal parts of him scattered all around the world and free. They were a medium to achieve salvation. Each number achieved that little bit for him and he was getting closer day by day.

Today was the day. There was not much of his self left in him now and with the self were gone the rules that bound him to the society. Today was the day. The numbers, carrier of his soul were not coming out at a leisurely pace today. Of their own accord they had accelerated. They came in droves and out they went and with each number out, he felt an uncontrollable joy. Each number out sent a shock wave, an adrenaline rush through him and he shook with it. He did not care any more if the ones who were sitting beside him or in front and back of him thought of him. He was vanquishing his self, his ego, his identity; he was becoming one with all in the world. The freedom that had once played on his lips came out in silent screams of pure rapture and he shook with it. The fear that had once darkened his eyes slightly now made his heart tremble , will 37 make it ? and he shook with it. It was too much to hold , the fear and the joy. He felt the cosmos fight its battle of light and darkness inside him and he felt the fight growing ever stronger with each number and that infinitesimal part of his soul getting free. He was winning, now there were only few seconds left for the signal to become green and somehow he pinned all his hope all his energy onto this number, which was slowly rising out in a cry from his heart. This number was different; it had defied the speed of earlier numbers and was steadily changing into a momentum and taking all ounces of his energy along with it. In a flash he knew it.

He had reached the moment; if this number comes out in these few seconds left he would be no more ‘He’. He would be nobody, he would be everybody, no fear , no pain, no joy, no sorrow.

He willed '37 to come out. He prayed for ’37 to come out.

The number defied his will. It would not rush. It would seep into every corner of his body , it would take all his feelings , his thoughts, his dreams out with it. Tears were streaming down his eyes, lips were taught, hands trembled and he was being sapped by the number on its course to rise out, to snap all his bonds. This would not be a silent celebration it would be majestic, an uproar of salvation. ‘37 rose like a huge cry and the air rushed from inside his throat to his mouth and the bus moved ! The bus moved.

He could feel the number dying on tips of his lips. It was a huge number, it was his very soul dying. He chocked with it. Not able to breath he tried to hold on to something and fell from his seat. People who where already afraid from the unearthly look of his eyes and the uncontrollable shaking of his body rushed in to help him but the bus had moved and the breathing....... it had stopped.





Finally

He was free.

One old old poem

This is an old poem. I wrote it after getting a goodmorning message(the side pic) which had a pic of a little angel looking at a flower with wonder.( i am pasitng the poem here as i hv nothing better to offer right now)

Angel of love
a littel angel woke up from the slumber
she had been sleeping for hundreds of years,
the child thought where am i ?
All alone, her eyes were wet with tears

none in the world cares for me
no one remembers a small little child
i have slept while the world has crept,
from peace to voilence, from being lovely to be wild

everyone runs from dont know what,
scared faces, faces of a still life
everyone runs for dont know what
tense faces, faces facing unwanted strife

She walked alone in this huge world,
she walked straight into sadness and despair
i am not needed , i dont have use,
i am better off sleeping than being here

and turning back she wept again
and then stopped , she had stepped on something odd
a softness strange in this age of hardness,
it was a flower on which her sad feet had trod

she picked up the flower when she was sad,
it was broken but fragrant
she was inspired when she saw the flower,
they bloom! after all this rant(useless,hurting,egoistic dioalogues that we engage into).

I am not alone, there are others too,
for whom selflessness is not just a word
i am not alone, all, xcept some humans, do
hope and want a better world

so i will sit like this flower,
and wait for that day
when some human steps on me and remembers
to end all his misery, there is a way

the way is love, love and love
not just for others but for life itself
the way is there, its for us to walk
to love this world and in this world yourself.

Yes i know its more of a muscled rhyme than the beauty and flow that a poetry has but then when did i proclaim i was a keats?

One wierd story

This will sound weird but its true......
Right now I am writing this piece all stitched up i.e. my face contains some foreign black thread which is NOT a pretty girls solitary hair finding its refuse on the curves between my maxilla and mandible but literally a black thread sutured into my jaw and the worst part is that I had to pay for it!
yesterday I finished my game of soccer , a somewhat intense one as the selection for inter dc tourney is going on. I was one of the last one to leave the ground after my customary rounds around it. As I walked out of the gate waving cheerily to the security guard, I saw a lone girl standing with 4 guys surrounding her a few meters off the road. Now I should have guessed nothing 'cause as it is , we work in a highly secure area. But I felt something, was it because the girl seemed pretty? or did she look as if in trouble. I cant keep my fingers on the exact thing that put me on to it but I felt something was out of place here outside my work place
( Now as I think back, a beautiful girl around my workplace is surely out of place )
Any way I went towards them being as casual as I can be, as if watching 4 guys and a girl and all of them collectively in trouble is a typical scene on this deserted road. The lot didn’t look inviting but the girl certainly didn’t run and hid behind me. That put me at ease, ok, no trouble here or else if the girl had found a hero , I mite have had to face 4 villains and that certainly is a tough job if u r not a kith or a kin of anybody remotely connected to deol family. Now what I perceived to be a safe distance i.e. an arms length of a distance, I asked “Excuse me, is there any problem?"
I have done some pretty dumb things in life, but before you say anything, I agree, this beats them all. Suddenly as if by the use of some ancestral black art, the till then "safe" distance between me and the closest guy shrunk. POP! I see his hands come out withholding something large and POW! I feel it on my jaw. I was surprised, I mean, c'mon he could have given me a good enough answer like " Oh! its nothing, good Sir, we are having some private conversation" and I would have left it at that or he could have given me an answer like "its none of your business" and then let me have it or he could have answered like "take this , u nosy b******" and then busted my jaw. He could even have used his body language and given me a sullen stare and I would have, like any other gentle( there are times ladies!)man, understood and turned my back on the whole affair. How can anyone answer a perfectly harmless question by putting your perfectly good jaw line out of shape?

I hope you are getting the extent to which I was surprised, it's like you take a tentative step forward in the dark hoping to find the ground and are suddenly airborne or like you believe that your seat is right beneath your behind and suddenly find yourself falling down towards earth. The worst part is, all of the above happen in slow mo. There comes out a hand and there you hear a crunching noise somewhere perilously close all in slow mo. Of course the hand is fast and its you who are slow but still wont it be good if all of it happened in a flash unlike too close to one of your dreams where you try to run and are rooted to same spot?
OK, let me continue, as I told you I was surprised, too surprised to see that they were running now except the girl. Surprise is always a good thing when somebody else is having it. It was great that I didn’t see them run or I would have been a bit more surprised and that would have been too much of a good thing . First the scoundrels hit me with god knows what and then run away? This is not happening. And then suddenly I guessed it , as I was clutching my face , that it was only me and her! Villains were now gone, afraid of drawing the first blood, fearing that hero's wrath would fall upon them. All this just when I , uh I mean the hero was beginning to get his famous temper on. Fate had cast me as a hero . Heroine was standing right there, I had to walk and she would be in my arms. One grateful kiss? Is it too much to expect first up? All right, I will just hold her and may be later exchange numbers after having a coffee. Now that sounds plausible, doesn’t it? There was no one on the street, no one to bother us at that point of time. Everything was just right.
Yes, this is it.
As I took each step , I felt the presence of some white light and a strange peace. with each step the light grew stronger and the silence more discerning. As I neared her I felt the light cross its threshold and engulf me and the silence get to the point where nothing else could be heard. Yes, this is what is called love at first sight.
The next step was into light and silence, the heavenly combination.

Somebody said " Call the ambulance".
Don't know for how much time had I been lying on the roadside. As if in a dream I saw the ambulance coming up and me reaching the hospital. When I fully gained consciousness ladies and gentlemen, The doctor had thrust a mirror onto my face, expecting me to get all gleeful and appreciate what a fine job of a crisscross tailoring he had just done.
I was feeling a bit woozy when I asked "doctor, will the scar remain?" He answered a knowing yes. Then I asked "doctor would I be able to play in next weeks tourney " and I felt a lot more woozy when he answered an emphatic 'NO' and then...........
they charged me 1200 bucks.
I passed out again.

When I was back from wonderland they charged me 1500 bucks.
Don’t you ask me what happened to the girl nor that was it a theft with that pretty girl into it from head to toe.And yes if somebody asks you about what happened to "Abhi". Tell them what I am going to tell them all, that some idiot in an overzealous effort to get the ball out of my reach banged his 5' some" head into a 5'10" jaw. Abhi was taken to the hospital and he is currently recuperating with 12 stitches lining his jaw.

Moral of the story: Yes, as with all the good stories, there is a moral in here as well and it is
“an arm's length is certainly not a good enough distance from which to save a damsel in distress, be a lot farther and ready to run."

Alive and Wondering

Yes, I am alive and still wondering . Not that i had a close shave with death but the fragile beings that we are with our every step frought with danger , it amazes me constantly how we cling to things , to people, to our own immortality. Of course this doesnt mean that we stop pursuing our ambitions but this does mean that in view of the little time we have , we should surely not waste it in being conceited or narrow minded. It all comes from this sense of immortality i tell you. The importance and seriousness we attach to most of the trivia surrounding us has bound us in a blinding web . The outcome of all that is quite diverse and ranges from simple verbal duels to all consuming wars, all of it needless.
I myself am the victim of this sense of immortality. There are Moments when i could have acted better. Moments which have left a trail of regret in their wake. I have learnt a lot though, and i would like to share it with you in a sentence
" chill 'cause Life tastes best when taken with a pinch of salt" ;o)